Macabre Milestone
by prettypurple
Summary: The McCormicks weren't entirely honest when they told Mysterion about not going to any more Cult of Cthulhu meetings since getting arrested. The story behind Kenny's first death and resurrection...
1. Prologue

_South Park and its characters belong to Trey Parker and Matt Stone._

* * *

_Eleven years ago..._

It was Friday night, and all twelve members of the Cult of Cthulhu's South Park branch were gathered in the basement of their leader, Jim McElroy (no relation to Jerome McElroy, the new cafeteria chef of South Park Elementary). Stuart McCormick and his young wife Carol sat behind all of the other cult members, as always, and got themselves drunk on the free beer.

"Stu, d'you have any idea what the hell he's saying?" Carol whispered when she was on her fourth beer.

"Don't know, don't care," Stuart replied, polishing off his seventh beer. Both were now feeling far less inhibited, and they began to make out as the other cultists looked away in embarrassment and tried to concentrate on the passage of the Necronomicon that McElroy was now reading. He smirked at the McCormicks, and thought, _This will be too easy._

When the police raided the meeting later that night and arrested everyone present, Jim McElroy didn't care, for the meeting's purpose had been served...


	2. Chapter 1

Almost a year later, Carol McCormick was shopping for groceries. This wasn't as easy as it sounded, especially without a stroller, because her three-year-old son Kevin was tugging at her arm, pointing at everything, and screaming "MINE!" at the top of his lungs.

"_No_, Kevin," Carol grumbled for what seemed like the twentieth time as she pulled Kevin away from a dessert display. "We can't buy those right now." _Not until your father gets a fucking job_, she added in her head.

"MINE!" Kevin repeated, crying now.

Carol's patience was wearing thin. "Shut up!" she hissed, giving him a little tap on the top of his head. "People are lookin' at us, and yer gonna wake up your brother!" She wished that she could afford enough groceries to fill up a shopping cart, because then she could have just stuck Kevin into the seat of the cart and he wouldn't have to be chased all around the store. At least her new little boy was sleeping soundly in his sling.

In the breakfast aisle, Carol briefly let go of Kevin's hand to open the freezer door and take out a box of frozen waffles.

Kevin held up a bottle of maple syrup. "Mine?"

"No, Kevin. Put it back." Maybe someday the McCormicks would be able to actually put something on their toasted waffles, but not today. Carol was glad that her younger son still had a way to go before it was time for him to be weaned; that meant more food to go around for the rest of the family.

"Carol? Carol McCormick?"

"Huh?" Carol looked up at another box she was checking out and saw Jim McElroy coming towards her, holding onto Kevin. "Oh, hi, Jim. I'm sorry, was Kevin bothering you?"

"Not at all," Jim said cheerfully. "The little rascal was just trying to grab a package of lemon bars out of my shopping basket."

"Yeah," said Carol, "he's in the 'Mine!' phase right now. Stuart an' I still gotta teach 'im that ya can't have ev'rythin'."

"I haven't seen you or Stuart at the meetings for a while," Jim remarked.

Carol shrugged. "Yeah, well, we've had our hands full." She pointed to her sleeping baby. "This is my little angel Kenneth, but we're just gonna be callin' 'im Kenny while he's little."

This was when the baby opened his beady little eyes.

"See that?" Carol said proudly. "He knows his name already."

As Jim got closer, Kenny squirmed and began to wail. His mother patted him on the back, felt his bottom, and murmured soothing things, but he didn't seem to need anything, and he didn't calm down.

"Sorry," she said to Jim. "He's usually pretty quiet; we'd better go."

"Alright, then. I hope to see you and Stuart on Friday, and you're more than welcome to bring the little one." He held up his shopping basket, and Carol looked longingly at the beer inside. "Hail Cthulhu!"

"Uh, yeah. Okay."

Kenny finally quieted down when Jim walked away. Unfortunately, Carol's relief was short-lived when she realized that Kevin had run off again.

_Shit_, thought Carol. "Kevin? Kevin, where are you?"

She didn't have to look far: back near the desserts, she saw an irate-looking store employee with a small boy who appeared to be covered in what looked like was once a German chocolate cake.

"Does this belong to you, lady?" the employee growled, pointing at Kevin.

Kevin answered for his mother when he wrapped his sticky arms around her legs and smudged cake all over her already dirty jeans. "Mine!" he said happily.

"You'll have to buy that cake," said the employee.

Carol smacked her forehead. "Kevin, goddammit!"

* * *

"I forgot how creepy this place is," Carol remarked as Stuart parked his truck outside the McElroy residence. She looked apprehensively at her baby. "Maybe we shouldn't have brought Kenny."

"Aw, c'mon, Carol," said Stuart, "that stupid Cult of...whatever" (he wasn't sure how to pronounce 'Cthulhu') "may be kinda creepy, but it's just a group of people who haven't got anything better to do on Friday nights. What's the worst that could happen? Besides, Jim said it was okay to bring Kenny, right?"

"Uh huh." Carol felt mildly better now. The cult really did consist mostly of people who were only there because they had few other social outlets, like those Star Trek nerds and the elementary school shop teacher.

They were greeted at the basement door by a figure in a hooded black robe.

"Welcome back," came Jim McElroy's voice from under the hood, "and hail the Great Old One Cthu-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Stuart interrupted as Kenny began to whimper. "Where's the beer?"

Jim serenely pointed to the refreshment table. "Over there, as always."

As Carol took the first sip of booze she'd had since learning of her pregnancy, it seemed to her that the beer tasted kind of funny. She shrugged it off as merely the need to get used to drinking it again.

It wasn't long before Stuart and Carol were both unconscious. Jim smiled wickedly and pulled Kenny out of his sling; it was time to finish what had been started all those months ago!

The screaming infant was placed in the center of a pentagram. The cultists surrounded him, joined hands, and began to chant over Kenny's cries...


	3. Chapter 2

The McCormicks' memories of the next morning were mostly a blur. While unconscious during the night, they were still dimly aware of voices shouting, "Why didn't it work?" or "You said it would work!" They woke up with splitting headaches in Jim's basement, just like back in the days when they regularly attended the cult meetings, but this time, their headaches were much, much worse, and instead of wearing his usual creepy smile, Jim seemed really pissed off about something. Stuart and Carol assumed that he was just mad at them for leaving him stuck with looking after Kenny while they were hungover in his basement until noon, but it was mostly his own fault. After all, Jim was the one who had allowed them to bring Kenny, and the one who provided the beer.

After that, it was a long time before the McCormicks were invited to any more meetings, and for a while, Stuart and Carol forgot all about that stupid cult. They were too busy drinking and fighting and caring for their boys to the best of their abilities.

* * *

One morning, around the time that Kevin started preschool, Stuart found his wife crying next to Kenny's crib.

"What happened?" he asked in a sudden panic, running to Carol's side.

Sniffling, Carol held up Kenny. "Look at 'im!"

Stuart looked at Kenny, and then back at Carol. "He looks fine, honey. He's just got some hair now, that's all."

"But it's BLOND!" Carol sobbed. Stuart stared bemusedly at her, still not understanding the problem.

"So what?"

"You don't have blond hair, I don't have blond hair, and Kevin don't have blond hair! Ev'rybody's gonna think that I-"

"You didn't, did you?" Stuart asked, guessing the end of the sentence.

"NO!" Carol began crying again. "Ya think I'm like Liane Cartman or somethin'?"

"Calm down, honey," Stuart soothed. "We can hide it."

He tiptoed into Kevin's room, glad that his elder son was a heavy sleeper, went through the few clothes that were in Kevin's closet, and came back with a very small orange parka. It no longer fit Kevin, and he'd never liked it anyway, so Stuart figured that he wouldn't miss it.

"Hand him over," Stuart said as he came back into Kenny's room. Carol did so, and Stuart gently placed Kenny inside the coat, zipped him up, and pulled up the hood. Kenny squirmed a bit at first, but then he started to make muffled, but happy noises.

"Happy now, Carol?" Stuart asked; he was beginning to get a bit snappy without his morning booze.

"Uh huh."

* * *

Stuart was the one to drop Kevin off at Miss Claridge's preschool class that morning, as South Park Elementary was more-or-less on the way to the bar. After spending about six hours there (it wasn't as if he had anything better to do), he went to pick Kevin up, because he vaguely remembered that Carol had..._something _to do today. Kevin was in a particularly tantrum-y mood today; he struggled and screamed all the way home. Stuart put him in his room ad then threw himself on the couch just as Carol and Kenny returned. Stuart rubbed his temples at the sound of Kenny's crying, but was relieved that it somewhat drowned out Carol's complaining voice.

"...bring Kenny to no more job interviews. You'll have to drink yer ass off here 'stead of the bar from now on."

Carol put Kenny down on the floor. "Where's Kevin? I gotta give 'im a bath."

"In his room."

A couple of minutes later...

"STUART!"

Stuart barely had time to react before feeling Carol slap him across the face.

"Hey! What the fuck did you do that for?"

"You brought home the wrong kid, you dumbass!" Carol yelled, pointing to the child that was screaming at Kenny; Stuart winced at all the noise. "This one's cleaner, and a _girl_!"

"Oh. She has short hair, though." He took a closer look at the kid. "Hey, I think that's Randy Marsh's little girl. Cheryl, or whatever her name is."

Carol quickly picked up Kenny as the Marsh girl threw a block in his direction. "Randy's at the bar a lot, right? Go give his kid back."

"I've already been to the bar today," Stuart whined. "And I'm not going near her again after what she did to me!" He showed off the bites and scratches that the little girl had left on his arm. "The kid's an animal."

Grinding her teeth, Carol put Kenny back into his sling and marched out of the house with the still screaming girl. Luckily, she didn't have to walk far before spotting a tired-looking brown-haired woman pushing a stroller while simultaneously trying to keep hold of a dirty little boy.

The wild little girl's demeanor changed instantly: she stopped screaming and happily squealed, "Mommy!"

"Shelly!"

"Kevin?" Carol called.

"Mama!"

Shelly's mother looked up from hugging her daughter as Carol came over to get Kevin. "Hi, I'm Sharon Marsh; I think our husbands are friends."

"Sorta. I'm Carol McCormick, and this"-she pointed to her other son- "is Kenny."

"This is my Stanley," said Sharon; Shelly poked Stanley and made him scream.

"No, Shelly!" Sharon scolded. "You be nice to your baby brother!" She turned back to Carol. "I'm sorry about our kids getting mixed up. My husband Randy said that he thought your son was Shelly because she just got a short haircut, but I think he was just a bit drunk. I would have called you, but I couldn't find you in the phone book."

Carol shrugged. "That's 'cause we don't have a phone."

The babies had started to babble at each other. Though Kenny's baby talk was muffled, Stanley laughed as though he could understand it.

* * *

Kenny began playing with Stanley often, as well as with two other baby boys: Eric Cartman and Kyle Broflovski. One day, all three of Kenny's friends came to his house for the first time. None of their mothers thought that the derelict McCormick residence was an ideal place for their boys to play, but Stanley and Kyle's fathers were working, Sharon had to take Shelly to a doctor's appointment, Liane had to "entertain a guest", and Sheila was supposed to lead one of the many protests she'd started since moving to South Park last year, so, Kenny's house it was.

Stuart was sprawled out on the stained old couch in front of the static-y TV set. He could hear Carol at the front door, talking to Kyle's mother.

"Okay, Mrs. Broflovski, I heard you the first time...No, I won't...Of course..._Goodbye_."

"I love you, bubbe!" Sheila called to her son as Carol slammed the door.

"I thought Kyle's mama would never leave," Carol sighed as she carried little Kyle into the living room. "Mrs. Broflovski kept goin' on about how to-"

The name finally got Stuart's attention. "Broflovski? As in, _Gerald _Broflovski?" He pointed at Kyle. "That's his kid?!"

"Yeah. So what? Just 'cause you hate Kyle's daddy doesn't mean Kyle and Kenny can't be friends." There was a gentle knock on the door. "I'm gonna put Kyle with Kenny and Stanley. Go make yerself useful and answer that."

Cursing under his breath, Stuart pulled himself up and went to the front door. It was Liane Cartman and little(-ish) Eric.

"He's getting a bit fat, isn't he?" Stuart remarked, watching Eric suckle on a bottle of formula.

Liane giggled. "Oh, that's just baby chub. He'll grow out of it, won't you, boopsie-kins?"

Eric blew a raspberry at his mother, and in the living room, Carol smirked as her husband was now the one who had to listen to a list of instructions.

"...make sure you wipe him good if he makes bears..."

"_Bears_?"

"...and if he gets cold-"

"We don't have a heater," Stuart interrupted.

Liane kissed her son, who moved his head away and began screaming. "Buh-bye, boopsie-kins! Mommy will miss you every second we're apart!"

Stuart glanced over at Carol, and chuckled a little as she pretended to puke. Sadly, neither of them felt much like laughing when Stuart closed the door on Liane and Eric began to cry louder.

"Aw, goddammit!" Stuart groaned. He stuck the bottle back in Eric's mouth, but it emptied fast, and Eric kept on wailing when he realized that there was nothing left to drink.

"Carol, this mini-planet won't stop crying!"

"Whaddya want me to do about it?" Carol snapped. "I gotta get to another job interview. Just put him in Kenny's room with the other kids."

"No!" Stuart cried pleadingly, grabbing Carol's elbow as she passed him on her way to the door. "You can't leave me alone with these little-"

Carol disgustedly pulled away from Stuart and slammed the door, drowning out his last word. Sighing resignedly, and with much effort, Stuart carried the heavy, thrashing Eric into Kenny's room and put him down between Kyle and Kenny. Eric spotted the baby bag that Kyle's mother had brought, and he began going through it, which Kyle did not like at all. He and Eric started to scream and smack each other, while Stanley pinched the bridge of his nose and Kenny did nothing.

"Hey, knock it off!" Stuart yelled, pulling Kyle and Eric apart. "Kevin!"

Kevin came in. "What?"

"Watch your brother and his friends while Daddy tries to fix the TV. Find them something to play with."

"Okay."

Stuart went back into the living room and did start trying to fix the TV before giving up and flopping back down on the couch. He picked up the remote and started going back and forth between the three channels until something interesting showed up on one of them.

Meanwhile, Kevin had decided that there was no way that he was going to let the babies play with HIS toys, so he was searching the house for something else that they could play with. He found a box in his parents' closet that was labelled "Fourth of July" (though, being only four, he couldn't read that), and contained lots of brightly-coloured firecrackers. Kevin knew how to light those! He dragged the box into Kenny's room, and the babies curiously gathered around it.

"Look!" said Kevin. He took out a firecracker, lit it, and threw it in the air, where it went off. "Pretty!"

A startled rat ran past the children, and Kevin decided to chase it, leaving the babies alone with the firecrackers.

* * *

Stuart was still flipping back and forth between channels when he heard a bang that scared several of the house's rats from their hiding places. He noticed that they were heading into Kenny's room, and he heard two little voices shout,

"Oh my gosh, kill Kenny!"

"'Ooo bastoods!"

_...Oh shit! _Stuart thought as the words finally registered in his booze-numbed brain.

He found Stanley, Kyle, and Eric babbling cheerfully and playing with some burned-out firecrackers, clearly unperturbed by the sight of all the rats that were surrounding something small and orange...

* * *

That night, the McCormicks sat in their bed and smoked weed, as usual, but this time it was in a futile attempt to dull their pain of losing their baby. The grieving family had already eaten most of the food that sympathetic neighbours had given them (Kevin had especially enjoyed Liane Cartman's famous chocolate chip cookies, not understanding or caring why they were there). One of Carol's cousins had given them a cake (it was store-bought, but still a nice gesture, since this cousin was nearly as poor as Stuart and Carol).

Stuart took a long drag on his most recent joint.

"Yer hoggin' it all, asshole!" Carol complained, as she did every night. The only difference was that her voice was tear-choked.

""Cause this is one that _my _brother gave us." He held up his free arm to block Carol as she tried to snatch the joint away.

Carol reached over Stuart's arm. "You don't deserve it! It's your fault that Kenny's dead! If you'd just been watchin' the kids like you were FUCKIN" S"POSED TO-"

Stuart shoved Carol off the bed without looking at her, and he immediately regretted it when she screamed.

"Honey, I didn't mean-"

"It's not that!" Carol groaned, clutching her stomach. "It feels like...like I'm-AAH!"


	4. Chapter 3

When Stuart came back from getting a towel and making sure that Kevin was still sound asleep, he found Carol exactly as he had left her: cradling the baby with a blank expression on her face.

"How'd this happen?" she whispered as Stuart gently took the crying baby from her to clean it up. Maybe this was only a pot-induced hallucination, or a dream brought on by her grief and the memory of the time she'd seen a girl on the news who didn't know that she was pregnant until she gave birth.

"Why the hell are you asking me?" Stuart muttered. He noticed that the baby suddenly looked bigger and less red than a newborn. "You know, he kinda reminds me of Kenny. He's even got that birthmark on his arm shaped like Africa."

Carol leaned over to take a closer look. "Oh, yeah, he does." She sniffled. "What should we do with this one?"

"Put him in Kenny's room, I guess."

Once the baby was completely cleaned off and diapered, he was carried into Kenny's room and placed in the crib. Carol stuck a pacifier in his mouth.

"He'll get cold if he's just wearin' a diaper," she quietly pointed out.

With a tired sigh, Stuart took out one of Kenny's parkas and wrapped the now contentedly sleeping baby in it. "Happy now?"

"Yeah." Carol yawned and turned the light off.

They returned to their room, and Carol gingerly sat back down on the bed as Stuart picked the joint back up. "Did that really just happen?"

Stuart shrugged. "I don't think so." There was a sad note to his voice.

* * *

"STUART!" Carol yelled the next morning. "Come quick! Kenny's alive!"

"What?" Stuart ran to Kenny's room, where Carol was joyfully cradling their very much alive Kenny.

"It wasn't a dream!" Carol sobbed happily, passing Kenny to her dumbstruck husband.

"Waffles!" Kevin called from down the hall. "Want waffles!"

"Just wait a minute, Kevin!" his mother hollered. She looked back at Stuart, who still seemed at a loss for words. Kenny, on the other hand, was making happy, albeit muffled, noises through his little parka.

"Aren't you happy, Stuart?" asked Carol.

"Of course I am," he finally replied, "but...how are we going to explain this to everybody?"

* * *

That afternoon, Carol was taking a walk with her children, still wishing that she had a stroller, when she encountered the Cartmans. Liane had a stroller for her boy, and it looked ready to break under Eric's weight.

"Why, hello, Carol!" Liane said sweetly as Eric drank from a bottle. "How are you, today?"

"Great," Carol replied as Kevin tried to snatch Eric's bottle. "I was so upset when Kenny died yesterday, but this morning he was fine!"

Liane, ignoring Eric's screams for once, quirked an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

Carol laughed nervously. "Uh, never mind. How are you?"

"Eric and I have been quite well, thank you. I seem to have misplaced one of my larger plates, but I'm sure that it will turn up somewhere."

"...Right."

* * *

Stuart was at the bar that night, absently sipping what was only his third beer for the whole day. Randy Marsh came in and sat down on the stool next to him.

"Hey, Stuart."

"Oh, hi, Randy. How are Sharon and the kids?"

Randy shrugged. "Sharon's Aunt Flo came this afternoon for her monthly visit, and Shelly bit her, and then Stanley puked right in Flo's face. Now Sharon's pissed off at them." He sighed. "I had to get out of there. How's your family?"

"Kenny died yesterday, remember?"

Randy stared blankly at him. "Uh, what?"

"Uh, never mind. I think that was the booze talking." For once, Stuart left the bar without finishing his beer.

* * *

"So, everybody you talked to today forgot about it, too?" Stuart asked his wife when he got home.

"Uh huh," Carol muttered. "It's like it never happened."

"Maybe it didn't," Stuart suggested, watching Kenny tear up a nudie magazine that had been lying around. "Maybe we're just that fucked up from all the beer and joints."

Kevin opened the fridge door. "Cake!"

"Then explain that," said Carol, pointing to Kevin as he stuck his fingers into the leftover chocolate cake. "It's the cake my cousin brought us when she heard that Kenny died. Ad over there"-she pointed to the kitchen counter- "is the plate that had cookies Liane gave us when _she _found out that Kenny died."

"Oh, yeah." Stuart needed to think for a minute before continuing, "If nobody else remembers that Kenny died, then we won't ever mention it again."

Carol nodded as she wrestled Kevin away from the cake. "It'll be our secret forever!" she shouted over Kevin's screams. "I mean, it's not like it'll happen again, right?"

Before replying, Stuart had to stop Kenny from putting a torn piece of the magazine into his mouth. "Right." He then stopped Kenny from trying to eat a rusty nail that he'd picked up. "It won't ever happen again."


End file.
